WOBBEGONG

An Australian shark.

This shark is brown with buff markings and a flattened body, one of an order called the orectolobes, which includes the nurse sharks and the whale shark; another name for them is carpet sharks. Its name probably comes from a New South Wales Aboriginal language, though nobody seems sure which. The wobbegong disguises itself so well on the sea floor that unwary divers often step on it. Actually, one writer on the species says it looks as though it has already been stepped on, but that’s just rampant speciesism. It’s notable, though, that few of those who describe it have much that’s positive to say about it. One list of Australian species calls it “mostly harmless”, uncannily like the updated description of Earth in the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A textbook on biology describes it as “small, sluggish and cryptic”, this last epithet meaning not that it speaks in riddles but that it is well camouflaged. Though a normally inoffensive member of the shark clan, even a wobbegong may take umbrage at such descriptions, or to being stepped on, and bite the unwary.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2009. All rights reserved. Contact me if you want to reproduce this piece, but first see my advice page, which also has notes about linking. Your comments and corrections are welcome.